1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image generation managing system to manage an image generating job by an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an image generation managing system capable of managing the image generating job by the image forming apparatus that many and unspecified persons can use and effectively preventing an abuse of the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, image forming apparatuses, such as duplicating machines or printers, have rapidly progressed toward high-quality color images. This rapid progress of the image forming apparatus causes specific documents that should not be counterfeited, such as securities and paper money, to be easily copied.
In order to prevent such a forgery of the securities, and the like, there has been disclosed a method of adding a specific pattern (for example, a yellow dot pattern) imperceptible by human eyes to an image output from an image forming apparatus, of performing a follow-up survey on the specific pattern to specify the image forming apparatus related to forgery, and of specifying a user related to the forgery, for example, the owner of the image forming apparatus (for example, see JP-A-11-75051 (FIG. 3)).
Further, this type of method of adding the specific pattern has been schematically disclosed in JP-A-11-75051 (FIG. 13) and JP-A-9-23333 (FIG. 15).
Recently, an image forming apparatus, such as a color duplicating machine, has been provided in, for example, a convenience store for the convenience of users.
However, since many and unspecified persons use the image forming apparatus provided in the convenience store, it is difficult to specify which user abuses the image forming apparatus to counterfeit, for example, securities. Therefore, it is strongly demanded to strengthen a preventive measure against the forgery of the securities, etc.